


a window in time

by fluffysfics



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Miscommunication, Nostalgia, Pining, the Master’s time on Earth, wow isn’t that a fun combination of tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:56:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27546454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffysfics/pseuds/fluffysfics
Summary: Seeking an escape from the monotony of his life alone on Earth, the Master sneaks into UNIT to spy on one of his past selves. Little does he know, one of the Doctors has had a very similar idea...
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Twelfth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	a window in time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThoughtsCascade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtsCascade/gifts).



> thank you very much to Jay for letting me write this idea!
> 
> also, this story contains very minor spoilers for a story featured in the book I Am The Master- these spoilers are both things revealed in the first ten pages of the story, and it’s just the name of the agency he worked for and the name he went by on Earth, no plot details at all!

Rain pours down the windows of UNIT headquarters, and the flimsy umbrella that the Master holds is barely enough to keep him from getting soaked. He shields his face with one hand, pressing himself up against the glass to gaze at the scene inside. 

The Doctor bustles around a workbench, busily putting together some kind of an energy device from scrap metal and bits of string. It’s glorious to watch; talented hands weaving parts together in absolutely perfect harmony. 

Then, a second figures slides into view- dressed in all black, slipping a leather-gloved hand around the Doctor’s waist, leaning in to murmur something into his ear. The Doctor smiles, pats the other figure’s shoulder in a fond, gentlemanly sort of way. 

Thousands of years ahead in the timeline, the Master feels the ghost of that pat, a warm, soft touch against his skin. 

He presses closer against the glass. He longs to be down there, to enjoy that easy companionship with the Doctor again, to feel like he’s _wanted_. It must have been centuries by now since the Master has felt like the Doctor genuinely cares for him. She certainly despises this self, if her method of stranding him on Earth is any indication. That still stings, and it’s been forty years. 

He sighs, and wishes he’d been able to stick it out with the Yedinitza a bit longer. The Russian equivalent of UNIT had been tiresome to work for, and he’d gotten disturbingly civilian during his life there. But maybe one day his work there would have brought him into contact with the Doctor, and they could have shared this easy companionship. 

“Oi!” 

The Master jumps. He reaches for his TCE, fully prepared to miniaturise whichever eager UNIT soldier has discovered his lurking. 

He spins around, and then he freezes. 

The Doctor is standing in front of him. The last one, with the silly t-shirts and the guitar and the hair and the damned _sunglasses_. He’s wearing the sunglasses now, even though it’s the dead of night. He’s also bone dry. The rain seems to be curving around him. That’s just not _fair_. 

“Doctor,” he says as evenly as he can. That gives him pause; he hadn’t been expecting recognition. The Master collapses his umbrella, because he’s already soaked, and leans against it like his previous self had been so fond of doing. 

“Are you _me_?” The Doctor squints, and picks his way closer, doing that ridiculous run that makes him look like something’s stuck up his arse. For several seconds, the Master is too dumbstruck by that question to answer. 

“What?” Not his best scathing remark, but he’s mostly just confused. What is the Doctor doing here? “No! No, I’m not you, I’m just- an interested party.” He has a full beard and he’s wearing a black hoodie, which will probably be enough to stop this one from recognising him as O. He is ridiculously face-blind. 

“Hmm,” the Doctor says, eyeing him suspiciously. He comes closer to the window, and sits down on a patch of grass. The Master would warn him that it was wet, but water doesn’t seem to be bothering him. It’s probably a trick of the sonic sunglasses, he realises, and curls his lip in distaste. 

“You’re the Doctor,” he says, just so the Doctor knows where they stand. “And so’s that down there. Isn’t that dangerous? Could cause a timeline error and erase this whole night from his memory when you leave.” 

The Doctor turns to look back up at him with an expression that suggests he just witnessed the Master eat paint. “No,” he says, patiently. “I’m being _careful_.” He is very much not. He presses his face against the window, making no effort to even stick to the very edge of it like the Master had done. But their past selves are utterly lost in each other and their work. They won’t be spotting anything. 

The Master sighs. He’s already soaked to the skin, so he plops himself down on the wet grass next to the Doctor with an unpleasant squish. 

“Why are you here, Doctor?” He can’t possibly fathom it. This is where the Master comes when he wants to soak in the past, enjoy feeling cared for. But he has always cared for the Doctor, and the Doctor probably knows it. Their relationship is one-sided; the Doctor flits around the universe, flirting with anything that moves, and the Master trails around four steps behind, and plots, and _seethes_. 

“Why do you care, uh...what’s your name?” The Doctor peers at him over the rim of his sunglasses. 

“Mikhail,” the Master says, the name he’d used in Russia slipping off his tongue with far too much ease. 

“You don’t sound very Russian.” 

“You don’t sound much like a doctor,” he retorts. 

“Yeah- anyway, _Mikhail_ , what’s your horse in this race? What do you care why I’m here? Not a crime to take a peek into the past.” The Doctor stubbornly resumes gazing through the window. The Master joins him, because the warm glow of the workshop is a lovely distraction from the cold rain seeping into his bones. 

“Don’t want to see you breaking time,” he says, which is very much a non-answer. The Doctor hums; loudly, suspiciously. The Master finds himself being treated to another over-the-sunglasses Scary Look. He smiles back, unaffected. 

“Oi, no need to grimace like that,” the Doctor says, and the Master immediately pouts. Face-blindness apparently correlates directly into rudeness. 

“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here,” the Master presses, keen for a distraction from his apparently grimace-like smile. 

The Doctor chuckles. Then he sighs, pressing his face against the window again. This time, the Master gets the sense that he’s hiding, rather than watching. 

“Nostalgia,” he says after a minute. “And I have a difficult decision to make, Mikhail. Thought this might help me out.” 

A sudden chill settles in the Master’s stomach. He has an awful feeling that he knows where this is going. But he asks anyway. “A decision...?” 

“On a planet a very long way and a very long time away, my best friend’s about to be executed,” the Doctor says gravely. “I...never have been able to kill her. And I don’t much want to now. Been wondering...what the alternatives are.” 

For a long, long moment, the Master stays silent. 

“Oh,” he says eventually. 

“Mm,” the Doctor hums, still focused on the scene inside the workshop. 

The Master pulls his hoodie tighter around him, staring vaguely into the middle distance. Coming here to UNIT HQ is always a bit of an exercise in misery for him. Some form of sweet torture, aching nostalgia mingling perfectly with the sting of hatred and _want_. 

This is unequivocally worse. 

He considers himself lucky that this Doctor isn’t feeling very talkative, because if he tries to strike up another conversation, the Master thinks he might scream. 

Whilst he was in it, the Vault had felt like the best seventy years of his life. Sure, it hurt. It hurt a lot. But he’d had the Doctor’s company almost every day, they hadn’t been trying to kill each other, eventually he’d even had a piano, and as many books as he’d wanted. 

Then, as soon as he’d gotten a taste of freedom, the thought of going back had been agonising. He wasn’t some little canary content to live in a cage. The Master had been desperate to earn his release, earn the Doctor’s trust. Utterly desperate. 

And then he’d died, alone and unwanted, and woken up abandoned in a forest on fire. 

He wants to wrap his hands around the Doctor’s throat and squeeze the life out of him, for ever letting Missy have hope that she might be loved. 

The Master scarcely realises how hard he’s been clenching his fists until he feels the sharp prick of nails piercing skin. He jumps, opening his hands, letting the rain splash into his palms and wash the blood away into the grass. 

“Doctor,” he says softly. “Why are you really here?” 

He can’t be here out of warm, fuzzy nostalgia. He can’t possibly love the Master like the Master loves him. The Doctor’s memories of his time trapped on Earth with UNIT...they must be full of stress for him, because Earth is stressful, and almost every day began with a new plot by the Master that he had to foil.

The Doctor sighs, somewhat uncharitably. “Nostalgia, I told you. Good times, these were. Simple. Whole lot easier than everything is now.” 

The Master shakes his head. He’s about to accuse the Doctor of lying to him, when the Doctor instead lowers his sunglasses, frowning at him. 

“Reminds me, actually. I used to know a Mikhail. Or- not _know_ him. I was aware of him. Thought he sounded rather a lot like a friend of mine. Worked for...eh, Yellow Nits? Russian UNIT.” 

“The Yedinitza,” the Master corrects tersely, and then immediately realises his mistake. A small, knowing grin curls across the Doctor’s face. 

“Okay, _just an interested party_.” The Doctor resumes staring through the window, and the Master sits there and fumes. 

He hates the Doctor. He’s so insufferably smug, so _knowing_ , so ridiculously fond of his own self-importance. Deep in his pocket, the Master fingers his TCE, but he knows he’ll never use it on the Doctor. Death would be too quick. Besides, this one isn’t even _his_ Doctor. His hatred for this one runs deep, thanks to the Vault, but there’s another one that he’s even more determined to crush. 

“You preach kindness,” he says suddenly, getting back up to his feet Surprised, the Doctor turns to face him. “You’re all about being good to people, being kind, never being cruel or cowardly. And then you come across the one person, the one sick, twisted, _evil_ person who could really _benefit_ from your kindness, and what do you do? You lock her up and torture her with her own guilt. For _years_. And you were going to do it for so many more years, weren’t you? You were never going to let me out. You just wanted to keep me.” 

The Doctor blinks, looking stunned, and the Master suddenly feels a dreadful prickling in the air. He shouldn’t have said that. Shouldn’t have said any of that, because now his own timeline is melting around him. He can feel it- sick, dizzy, swirling, the unrelenting ringing screech of a paradox that demands resolution. 

In a panic, he snatches the Doctor’s sunglasses off, presses their foreheads together as the cold rain finally begins to soak into the Doctor’s skin. “Forget it,” he growls, dark eyes boring deep into the Doctor’s soul. “Literally. Forget I said any of that. Forget you saw me here. You _will_ forget.” 

For a moment, the Master thinks that he’s going to fight. Then he slumps, nodding an almost robotic agreement. The awful twisting in the air ceases immediately. 

He sits back down, heavily, and buries his face in his hands. His hearts ache viciously, and for what feels like the millionth time, the Master curses how easily this body is reduced to tears. He sobs, cold rain cascading onto the back of his head as he presses his hand over his mouth to muffle a scream. 

The Doctor is right. Things used to be so much easier. He looks over at his best enemy- half slumped over, sunglasses placed back a little lopsidedly on his face. He looks like a puppet that’s had its strings cut. 

The Master crawls to him, smooths his hands over the now-damp coat, runs gentle fingers through curly grey hair. “I loved you,” he murmurs, to absolutely no response from the Doctor. _Typical_ , he can’t stop himself thinking, even though he knows full well that it’s because he’s hypnotised. “I still love you. You self-satisfied, selfish, arrogant bastard. You ruined my lives, and I love you.” 

He tugs sharply on those grey curls to wake him, and the Doctor stirs. By the time he comes fully back to himself, the Master is out of sight. Umbrella in hand, stalking miserably across the fields to get back to civilisation. Normal human civilisation, with all their alcohol and loud music and forgetting about things. 

He could do with some of that right about now. 

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! comments and kudos very much appreciated <3


End file.
